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Once the men were gone, it still took a half-hour to get past Miss Darcy’s reserve, but once she was comfortable things became much easier.

As might be expected, she initially gave all her attention to Elizabeth, but some gentle prodding reminded her that she should pay attention to everyone in the conversation.

Elizabeth took it as a good sign that she could be comfortable eventually, and thanked the fates she had enough sense to exclude her mother and youngest sisters from the introduction.

She thought Miss Darcy might never have recovered.

They eventually landed on music, which all could speak of with something approaching authority.

It seemed likely Miss Darcy was the better musician of the three, which surprised no one.

Darcy had asserted she had real talent, and she had both Mary’s industry and the benefit of the best masters money could buy, so it was to be well expected.

On the other hand, the young lady seemed reluctant to perform, and if she were unable to stand up to the friendliest audience she would ever meet in her life, she needed to work on her shyness with vigour.

They eventually migrated to the pianoforte, and Elizabeth had the brilliant idea to have Miss Darcy give Mary and her a shared lesson.

Of course, she sold the idea as exchanging techniques, but nobody was fooled into thinking the exchange would be anything but one sided.

After another half-hour she made an excuse to leave Mary and Miss Darcy playing duets while Jane embroidered and went to seek her beau.

~~~~~

A lucky break caused Darcy to exit Mr Bennet’s office just in time to see Elizabeth leave the parlour. Mr Bennet and the colonel were locked in a fierce battle of chess so neither man appeared to notice his exit, and it seemed likely Elizabeth had temporarily abandoned Georgiana to her sisters.

As they met in the corridor, Darcy became more nervous than the occasion seemed to call for, and he could see Elizabeth appeared to be blushing and feeling the same thing herself.

He smiled gently and held out his hand. She gave him hers in return, and he gave it a chaste kiss on the knuckles, which made her blush even more furiously.

“I am happy to see you, Elizabeth,” he said gently.

She looked up, and after a moment of introspection replied, “You as well. In fact, I came to seek you out.”

“Oh?” he asked curiously.

“Yes… your sister is lovely and we all like her exceedingly.”

“I suspect there is a ‘but’ hidden there.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “Am I so easy to read, then…” and she gave a significant pause, and finally added, “…William?” It was the first time she had used his given name in a sentence, and though it came out awkwardly, she gave a small smile of triumph.

Darcy wanted to lighten the mood slightly, so he ignored the awkwardness and laughed. “Yes, you are quite easy to read. All you had to do was beat me over the head with my own bad manners for a month, and I caught on at once.”

She laughed gaily, but Darcy strongly suspected she still found the speed of their reversal disconcerting. He found it disconcerting, and he had weeks to accustom himself to the idea.

Darcy said gently, “It will get easier with time.”

“I thought all women were supposed to be inscrutable and mysterious. Where did I go wrong?”

Darcy chuckled, then took her hand and gave it another kiss just for good measure. According to the rules of propriety, they were pushing their luck with how long they should be alone unchaperoned, but not too badly.

“You will always be mysterious, but hopefully less inscrutable.”

“You will have to work on your stone face as well, my good man.”

“We were discussing Georgiana.”

“Oh yes. As I said, she is a lovely girl and we like her exceedingly… but, gracious me is she shy. I am afraid the ton will eat her alive if she does not toughen up before her come out.”

“I have a plan for that.”

“Which is?”

He sighed. “Mostly, I plan to do as you instruct. There are things we will need to discuss privately about her background, and I will rely on your judgement about what to do.”

“What if I judge the answer is to lock her in a cottage with my two youngest sisters until they average each other out.”

“I have a half-dozen suitable cottages at Pemberley. Lock away,” he said with a good laugh, which Elizabeth joined.

~~~~~

The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully, aside from a scolding from Mrs Bennet about Elizabeth’s failure to notify the matron she should be home to meet their illustrious guests.

The scolding had as much effect as they usually did, especially since Elizabeth had already run through everything the matron could say in her mind far in advance.

The dinner was a raucous affair. The Bennet table was a noisy place at the best of times and adding a colonel in uniform to the younger sisters’ usual antics was like putting out a fire with lamp oil.

The colonel took the younger sisters’ flirting with aplomb, which Elizabeth took to mean it was better than cannon fire.

He related some war stories that she believed were paradoxically both sanitised and exaggerated.

That end of the table had never been so entertained.

By Mrs Bennet’s design, Miss Darcy was seated between Jane and Mary so Elizabeth could sit by Darcy—a plan nobody objected to.

Elizabeth remembered all the hundreds of questions that had run through her mind at her aunt’s house, such as how they would dine at Pemberley, how any children might be raised, and the like.

Nobody was really paying attention, and she would have had to stand on the table and shout to be heard anyway, so she gave Darcy a lengthy list of her thoughts and questions.

Darcy was more than happy to see that her thinking was moving towards what their life might be. He reckoned they were beyond questioning whether they might be compatible to questioning whether their life together might be to her taste.

He asked for a few clarifications, then replied.

“Most of your questions have a similar answer. We will dine wherever the mistress tells the servants to send our meals. Our children will mind their mother, so what boys or girls do will be mostly up to you. Of course, our sons will have to learn to be gentlemen and our daughters to be ladies. The former will be more my purview as they get older, but not when they are young. We have obligations in town for a couple of months per year, but otherwise we will divide our time in a way upon which we mutually agree. I envision a partnership, Elizabeth. If I wanted a docile wife who just did what I said, do you really think I would have had any trouble obtaining one a decade ago?”

To that, she had almost nothing to reply. The very concept of having a say in the life she was joining was something she had never expected, particularly when she was moving up so far in society.

Darcy could see her distress. “Chin up, Elizabeth. We will work it out together,” he whispered, and boldly reached across under the table to squeeze her hand.

She smiled. “You say that with some confidence.”

“Hardly… it is all bluster,” he said with a rueful smile, and they went back to their desserts.

The rest of the evening went apace. After dinner, Miss Darcy lost the protection of the elder Bennet sisters and was thrust headlong into the world of Lydia and Kitty, who were shocked and dismayed beyond measure to learn the heiress simply bought all her bonnets and never remade them.

After enough protestation about the basic unfairness of her upbringing, they convinced her to bring a few of her best bonnets the next day so she could learn all the important points of bonnet reconstruction.

Elizabeth suspected Lydia’s motives were hardly altruistic, and Miss Darcy would return to Netherfield carrying fewer than she arrived with; but she thought it might be good training for the girl.

She needed some adversity in her life, and an afternoon with Lydia Bennet seemed much like learning to swim by being tossed unceremoniously into the deep end of a pond.

The Netherfield party left in good time, with everyone satisfied with the meeting. The courting couple were both happy and relieved that one more obstacle to coming to some sort of agreement on their future was behind them.

~~~~~

As they walked to the carriage, Elizabeth and Jane pulled Darcy aside for a moment.

Jane said, “I understand Mr Bingley asked to speak with me.”

“He has,” Darcy said, still not particularly comfortable with being in the middle.

“Has he made any grand pronouncements?” she asked, obviously aware of what Darcy had said when they returned to Netherfield.

“Not to me.”

“All right. I will hear him out… but not alone.”

“Naturally. Would Elizabeth and I as chaperones suffice?”

“We can be as attentive or as hard of hearing as you like,” Elizabeth offered, and was struck by how comfortable she sounded standing next to Darcy with her hand in the crook of his arm making commitments for his future deportment.

“Bring him in the morning,” Jane said, then curtsied and scurried away.

Darcy gave Elizabeth another proper kiss on the hand, and the party returned to Netherfield full of the day’s news.